Expectations met

Before the regular season had ended Perry Tyndall was fielding inquiries of the date, time and location of this year’s 2A state boys basketball championship.

“We haven’t even won the conference title yet and people want to know when the state championship is…” Tyndall thought to himself as fans approached with the question.

Ryan Herman / Sports Editor

Before the regular season had ended Perry Tyndall was fielding inquiries of the date, time and location of this year’s 2A state boys basketball championship.

“We haven’t even won the conference title yet and people want to know when the state championship is…” Tyndall thought to himself as fans approached with the question.

“Do these people not know how hard it is to get there, much less go back-to-back?”

When you win so often and you have in your trophy case three massive, World Series-like rings won in the last five years, those questions come with the territory.

It’s a territory the Vikings are expected to reach every year, and the ones who were asking in January and February now have their answer — at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the Dean E. Smith Center in Chapel Hill.

“Our kids our fired up. We’ve got some that were here last year, so to taste it and to get back, it’s pretty special,” Tyndall said during Monday’s state championship press conference.

“But the ones that haven’t, it’s been an unbelievable ride we’ve been able to take.”

And what a ride it has been.

In 29 games this season the Vikings (27-2) have been utterly dominant in all but three. Their closest margin of victory was a 74-72 win over 3A West Craven four games into the year. Then they went 0-2 in the HighSchoolOT.com Holiday Invitational with losses to nationally-ranked DeSoto (Texas) and to this weekend’s opponent, Waxhaw Cuthbertson.

The loss to the Cavaliers (29-3) has been dissected, picked apart and studied to the point of exhaustion. But it’s what sparked Kinston’s current 18-game win streak.

“It definitely was used (as motivation) because ultimately losing exposes a lot of things that you’re not going to get when you’re winning games,” Tyndall said. “Making mistakes (when) you win, the sting doesn’t hurt as bad. That was our last loss, and it has fueled us in a lot of ways.”

Kinston’s average margin of victory has been 32.2 points since it blew a 13-point lead to the Cavs on Dec. 28 with 1:41 left in the third period.

The Vikings led 47-34 at that point, but Cuthbertson, which fell to Kinston 58-55 in the state 2A title game last season, scored the game’s last 16 points to win 50-47 and bring the teams’ head-to-head record to an even 1-1.

“During practice, coach, all he says is, ‘Think about what happened in the Christmas tournament and take (your minds) back there,’ ” junior guard Qwarri Ham said. “So every time we go out there and play as hard as we can. In that Christmas tournament we lost, and we didn’t like that, so we go out there and play hard and play for our team.”

“We didn’t finish,” junior forward Tiquan Canady said. “We thought the game was over, but you can’t win a game in the first half. You’ve got to keep playing, and that taught us a lesson right there.”

While it was anything but, the Vikings made conference play look easy, winning all 12 regular season games by at least 19 points — the closest of which came before the loss to Cuthbertson — en route to their seventh consecutive conference title.

In the postseason Kinston made light work of its two conference tournament opponents to win that for the seventh straight year. And after taking care of Bunn and Fairmont in their seventh straight regionals appearance, the Vikings are playing for their fourth state title since 2008 and are in their fifth championship game since 2007.

“This has been a really, really fun group,” Tyndall said after his team dismantled Fairmont 68-41 to advance to the title game. “We’ve tried not to talk about going back a whole lot because I didn’t want that to be the focal point. But for these guys to go back to the state championship and play the way they did (against Fairmont), I’m so, so happy for all of them.”

Ryan Herman can be reached at 252-559-1073 or Ryan.Herman@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter: @KFPSports.